Ginnie Springs 1/30&31/99
Crystal River 2/15/99
Key Largo 4/23-25/99
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea 5/23/99
Jupiter 5/29/99
Ft. Pierce 6/19/99
Boynton Beach 7/24/99
Pineapple Pier Cleanup 9/18/99
OceanFest 9/19/99
Rainbow River 11/20/99
Trip Report Page
Venture Crew Home Page
Ginnie Springs Camping Trip - January 30 & 31, 1999
One word sums up this weekend trip - WOW!!!!!
We had a wonderful time.
The trip started out by meeting at my house in Melbourne at 6:15 AM (yawn.....) on Saturday. We loaded up, gassed up, and headed out of town shortly after 7:30 AM. We had 4 campers (non-divers), 3 open water students, and 12 divers.
We arrived at Ginnie Springs at around 11:00 AM and checked in. After picking out our camp sites along the Sante Fe River, we headed for our first dive in Ginnie Springs.
Ginnie Springs is a very large cavern. The spring basin is about 15 feet deep. Once into the basin, you can see the cavern entrance. There are 2 levels in the cavern. The first is about 20 foot from top to bottom. This then opens up into what is called the ballroom. The ballroom is 120 feet long and at the bottom of the cavern we hit 55 foot on our depth gauges. There were huge rocks which helped form smaller caverns off of the ballroom.
At the bottom of the cavern is a closed off cave entrance. The flow from the aquafer was intense. I held onto the grate at the cave entrance and the force from the water blew me into a horizontal position. When I let go of the grate, I was blown backwards by the force of the water.
Even though this is a cavern, there isn't much ambient light and it was necessary to carry a flashlight to really enjoy the dive.
There were a few catfish in the cavern, but most of the fish were found in the basin. There is very low oxygen content it the aquafer water, so it is very difficult to sustain any life within the spring.
We exitted the cavern and dove the spring run, which dumps into the Santa Fe River. The water moves very swiftly down the run and we had a little bit of difficulty getting back up to the spring basin - but we all got back OK.
After our first dive, we setup camp and had lunch. (PBJ and chicken salad sandwiches) After lunch, we did dive number 2. The first location was Little Devil's Spring. This is a 40 foot deep crevasse that has a cave opening at one end. The crevasse is about 50 feet long and is only wide enough for one diver. Not much to see, but pretty neat to experience. We came up from Little Devil's Spring and followed the spring run down to Devil's Eye.
This is a cave entrance. Since none of us are cave certified, we did not penetrate the opening. We did drop about 20 foot into the opening and read the "Grim Reaper Sign" which warns divers who are not cave trained not to enter. Again, the water was flowing very hard from the aquafer. It was cool watching the lights of the cavers down in the hole. This cave runs from the Eye entrance to Devil's Ear which is a short distance from the Eye.
We swam over to the Ear which was a much larger, deeper crevasse. This crevasse had a few fallen logs in it at about 30 feet. One at a time, we penetrated the crevasse to about 50 feet and watched as cavers who had entered the Eye exit the cave system at the Ear. I was amazed at the rate of flow. It was difficult to keep from getting blown backwards up out of the hole.
Next, we surfaced and entered the Santa Fe River via an extremely deep grass bed. Dave parted the grass and we followed his trail. I can see how someone could easily get entangled in this deep grass. Once we got out of the grass, some folks dove, others snorkled, and the rest simply floated on their backs and sang songs at the tops of their lungs as they drifted down the river towards the Ginnie Springs run.
The water of the Santa Fe is extremely tanic from all of the cedar trees which makes the river a reddish brown color. It was awesome to see the color change from the blue clear spring water to the dark tanic river water. The river had many fallen logs, fish, and turtles.
We drifted down to the Ginnie Springs run and swam up the run to the cavern basin. A few of us entered the cavern since we still had plenty of air left.
We then went back to camp and got dinner started. (cheeseburgers, potatoe salad, chips) After dinner - night dive in the cavern! Only a few folks opted to do the night dive. (Most of us were extremely beat!)
We had a happy little fire going at camp and most of the crew hit the hay by 10:00 PM.
Up around 8:00 AM for a great bacon, eggs, and pancakes breakfast. Then tear down. Once we got camp torn down, we rented canoes and headed up the river. One of the canoes got chased by an extremely friendly manatee. What an experience!
We got drizzled on, but no one melted.
We did lunch at one of the park's pavilion. (PBJ and BLT's) We headed home by 3:00 PM. About halfway home, the sky opened up and down came the rain! We got home around 6:30 PM. By the time we got things situated, we got to watch the second half of the Super Bowl.
It was a wondeful trip. I wish you all could have been there!
Next month, we are planning a day trip to Crystal River to dive with the Manatees. We are going on Monday, Feb 15th (President's Day) We will be renting john boats. Please let me know ASAP if you are interested in joining us on this trip.
Crystal River - February 15, 1999
We had a wonderful trip to Crystal River.
We met at 7:15 AM at my house. It was quite chilly at the time but we were confident that things were going to warm up as the sun got higher in the sky.
After loading up 3 vehicles, we headed out a little after 8:00 AM.
We had 10 folks leave from Melbourne and 2 others meet us at Crystal River for a total of 12 divers.
It was about a 3 hour drive to Crystal River on the west coast. We arrived shortly before 11:30 AM and had a yummy picnic lunch.
After lunch, we rented 3 john boats from Port Paradise, loaded them up with our gear, watched a briefing video, and headed out to King Springs (the main spring that feeds Crystal River). By now, the sun had warmed the air to a balmy 70+ degrees - which matched the water temperature. It was a beautiful day.
There were a number of open water classes but we timed our entry pretty good between cattle boats. One good point is that open water students can't enter an overhead environment, which means none of these folks were in the King Springs cavern.
There was a brief shock upon entering the 72 degree water - thank God for wetsuits. Once over the initial shock, it wasn't bad - in fact, it was pretty nice.
My buddy and I headed for the sping which is surrounded by Manatee Sanctuary areas. We got over the spring basin and descended to about 30 feet. There were huge schools of mangrove snapper along the sides of the rocks that line the basin.
At this point, we entered the cavern. Lights are definitely needed. We explored the cavern and found lots of nooks and crannys (kind of like an English Muffin :) There were a couple rather large catfish in some of the crevasses. At the back of the cavern in the ceiling is a tunnel that ascends for as far as the eye can see (called a smoke stack). I poked my head up into the smoke stack, but my tank stopped me from going any farther. (probably a good thing)
After exploring the cavern, we went back to the entrances (there are 2) The one entrance was completely filled with snapper. They were so thick that you couldn't see daylight through them. It was really cool to swim up through all of these fish. They would split and let you through and then immediatly fill the spot that you just swam through.
Our deepest point in the cavern was 51 feet.
Outside of the cavern, there is a 2 foot long manatee statue on a base that tells divers about the plight of the manatee. We all rubbed the statue for good luck.
After our experience at King Springs, we went to 3 Sisters Springs. This is a snorkel spot. You swim up the spring run to a very large pool of crystal clear water (until everyone stirs up the sand :) This pool has 3 separate spings in it. There were snapper as well as bass in the pool. The spings are in about 15 to 20 feet of water.
At the mouth of the spring run is a small manatee santuary area. As we were leaving this spot, a manatee swam up and spent a little time with us. A few of our divers were priviledged to be picked by this gentle giant for a back rub. What a thrill!
It was getting late and we had to get the boats back to Port Paradise. During the return ride, one of our boats was being followed by another manatee. They cut their engine and this magnificant creature came right up to the side of the boat and rolled over for belly scratches.
We got back to the dock around 5:00 PM. We returned the boats and packed up. We headed home around 6:00 PM and stopped in Inverness for burgers at Checkers. We got back to Melbourne around 9:30 PM and unloaded all of the gear.
Total cost of this dive trip was $20 per person. This included transportation, lunch, boat rentals and drinks. (the diving's free) Divers supplied their own equipment. Gear and tanks are available for rent at the Port Paradise Dive Shop.
Crystal River is a wonderful place for manatee encounters. Hopefully, the air will be just a smidge warmer next we go.
Next month, we are planning to get in one last lobster dive before the season closes.
Happy Diving!
Key Largo Camping Trip - April 23 to 25, 1999
We had one heck of a good time this past weekend.
The trip started by meeting at my house at 6:00 on Friday evening. We packed the trailer with camping gear and the truck with SCUBA gear and headed for Florida City shortly after 7:00 PM.
We arrived at the Super 8 Motel in Florida City at 11:20 PM. We got our rooms and hit the hay.
Up by 8:00 on Saturday morning and breakfast at Burger King. After breakfast, we headed into Key Largo. We arrived at Pennekamp to learn that our camp sites wouldn't be available until after 2:00. So we headed to Divers Outlet for a little shopping. Next, we went to Atlantis Dive Center. We got there around 11:30, got checked in, and made lunch under the cabana by the water. The boat got back from the morning run around 12:30. We loaded up our 19 divers and 2 snorklers and headed for Carysfort Reef Lighthouse which is about a 55 minute ride north of the dive shop.
The weather was wonderful. The sky was clear and the ocean was calm. We had 1 foot seas. The water temp was around 77 degrees and the air was over 80 degrees.
Our first dive was just off of the lighthouse. The reef surrounds the lighthouse and slopes down to about 25 feet and levels off. After a short way, the reef drops dramatically forming a wall and plunges to a depth of 70 feet. We were doing this dive at low tide, so the vis was a little cloudy. We had about 40 foot of vis. Lots of lobster. Lots of fish. I did about a 40 minute dive. One dive team reported sighting a very large green moray eel on this dive.
Our second dive was about a 5 minute ride south of our first dive. By the time we entered the water for the second dive, the tide had turned and the vis had cleared up to about 60 feet. The second dive was only about 30 feet at the deepest point. Lots of coral and fish. We found a number of swim throughs that were pretty dramatic. At one point, my husband was pointing into a very dark hole under a coral formation. I stuck my head in and saw a very large white grouper. This is what I thought he was pointing at. As I pulled my head out of the hole, I spotted something in my peripheral vision. It was a 6 foot baracuda, just hanging out. It startled me a bit. That is what Bobby was trying to point out to me. A little farther in our dive, I spotted the largest snook I've ever seen. OK, I know the water magnifies 25%, but this guy was HUGE!
As we got back on the boat after about 45 minutes, the snorklers told us about a school of eagle rays that soared past the boat. Too cool! Another dive group saw a 6 foot nurse shark. I think I liked the second dive better than the first - probably because I could see better.
Sean was our captain and Rein was our crew. They both did an excellant job in helping our divers in and out of the water.
We ate pineapple and oranges on the way back to the dock. We got back around 6:45, unloaded the boat, loaded up the cars and headed for Pennekamp. We got checked in and got camp setup. After a yummy dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs, we all relaxed around our pseudo-campfire (open fires are currently banned in Florida due to the dry conditions). We used a lantern. :-)
Up early Sunday for a pancake and hash brown breakfast. 2 of our divers did a Sunday morning dive on the Duane Wreck and the Christ Statue while the rest of us broke down camp. 2 others rented a canoe and paddled around Pennekamp. 4 dove the Pennekamp swim area while I snorkled. We saw lots of fish and lobster. This gets to about 20 feet deep. One of our divers found 2 rings under the swim platform - TREASURE!!!!
We finished packing up camp and were off the site by 2:00 PM. We went to Atlantis Dive Center and had lunch under the cabana by the water - again. We headed home around 3:30 and stopped at the Ft. Pierce Pizza hut for dinner. We got back into Melbourne around 9:30.
A number of us noticed red bumbs on our necks and figured that the Pennekamp no-see-ums had feasted on us. We all used bug spray, but figured we had just missed our necks. WRONG!
I got this from John. He did not camp with us and he got the bumps, too. So it was NOT the no-see-ums at camp - it was in the water. He did not have on a wet suit, so he is covered! Those of us who wore wet suits have most of our bumps on our necks.
John's note:
Divers:
Are you covered with little red bumps after this weekend's dive in the keys?
If so then you have fallen victim to the stinging "Sea Nettle". There are several things that you can do to help easy the itching, which is an allergic reaction to a venom that is injected into the skin by the stinging cells (microscopic hypodermic needles) of these creatures.
0.1% hydrocortisone cream is available from all drugstores and will help relieve the reaction, creams like "Lanacain" will help stop the itch, "benedryl" may also help the allergic reaction, but it might make you sleepy too (its the PM part of excedrin PM) for those who prefer natural remedies, papain ("an enzyme capable of digesting protein, obtained from the unripe fruit of the papaya," found in health food stores and is the active ingredient of Adolph's Meat Tenderizer) is said to relieve the irritation.
Good luck, and don't scratch or it might get infected!
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Beach Dive - May 23, 1999
Hello Fellow Divers!
What a glorious day! For those of you who cancelled at the last minute, you're going to be bummed.
We met at at my house a little after 6:15 AM on Sunday morning. We had only 4 divers in the carpool. We also had 10 snorklers with us.
We got to Lauderdale at 10:00. Here we met up with our 3 other divers at the dive site one block south of Anglins Fishing Pier which is at the end of Commercial Blvd. John, who lives in the Lauderdale area, was one of them and had volunteered to be our dive guide. Thank you sooooooo much John. You really helped to make the dive a wonderful success.
When doing this dive site, bring LOTS of quarters for parking. We lucked out and all got spaces in the lot right at or extremely close to our dive site. Cost is $1 and hour. We were there for about 7 hours. There is also a parking lot by the pier that is $5 for all day, but it was full when we got there.
We setup our gear and organized into 2 groups. John lead the first group and the second group followed. Without a cloud in the sky and only very slight wave action, we entered the 82 degree water. The beach entry here is extremely easy.
We hit the water just shortly after low tide and swam out to the first reef. The vis was about 25 feet - not bad, but John said that it is usually better. We had a very mild south current at the begining of the dive so we planned on heading north on the first reef until we started seeing fishing line in the rocks which told us that we were nearing the fishing pier. At this point, we planned to head east along the pier to the second reef (which is just past the end of the pier). We then were going to head north a bit more and then let the current carry us back south to our exit point. Well, when we got out to the second reef, the current was going slightly north. OOPS! But it wasn't anything we had any problems with. We were just a little surprised.
The first reef was a large coquino reef. It had holes that varied in size from 8 inches to 2 foot in diameter. These holes opened to another system under the reef. If you stood on your head and dropped down to where you could see under the top layer, you would see an open area under the top "crust". This was full of sea life!
We saw reef squid, nurse sharks and lobster, as well as lots of fish on the first reef. We saw a huge school of tangs and lots of brightly colored parrot fish. Not much relief to this reef, but the cool holes made great hiding places for juvenille tropicals and lobster. The rock was covered in most parts with blanket corals.
The second reef reminded me of some of the Keys reefs that I've dove - only nicer. Lots of large rocks covered with coral. I was extremely impressed with the beautiful massive gregonian colonies and large sea fans as well as the large brain corals. Bobby and I watched a leopard ray having parasites removed at a cleaning station. We saw lots of barracuda on the second reef. I liked both reefs, but I enjoyed the second reef's diversity much better.
We only hit a maximum depth of 20 foot. Bobby and I had a 90 minute dive. Our exit was very easy.
The snorklers also had a great time. They snorkled out to the second reef and spent about an hour floating around checking everything out.
Everyone brought a picnic lunch and we all ate on the beach (because of the sand-which-is there - UGH!) After lunch, group 1 did another dive and the snorklers also headed out again. I was pretty worn out from the long first dive and opt'ed to just be lazy and float around in the ocean.
Janel was in the group that did the second dive and sent me this info:
Both our dives were great! The vis on the first dive (about 20-25 ft) was a bit better than the second dive (about 15 - 20 ft). But the surge was a bit heavier on the second dive, which affected the visibility. The water temp was a very comfortable 82-84 degrees on both dives.
There were many different types of fish. On our second dive we saw 2 nurse sharks, one about 3 ft long the other a baby about 18 inches. Cute! We saw a turtle, a sea snake, a barracuda, plenty of lobster, lots of Christmas Tree Worms and Featherdusters. Plus there was an abundance of different types of corals and sponges.
Thanks for the info Janel.
We packed up at 4:00 and stopped for dinner on the way out of town. We actually left at 5:30 and got home by 8:00. I will definitely dive this beach again.
Oceanfest is a 3 day celebration at Lauderdale by the Sea which takes place September 16, 17, & 18. Friday is host to a group beach night dive. Saturday includes a reef cleanup. Sunday sports a treasure hunt. Last year, Dave Speer won a new BC in the treasure hunt. They also have vendor booths setup on the beach. We are planning a trip to Oceanfest again this year.
Next scheduled dive is Saturday, June 19th at Pepper Park just north of Ft. Pierce Inlet in celebration of National Dive-In Day.
Can't wait to get wet!
Jupiter Adventure Scuba Night Dive - May 29, 1999
Another wonderful trip!
We headed out to Jupiter around 3:30 Saturday afternoon and checked into the dive shop around 5:00. We stopped for dinner and then headed to the dock. We were the first ones there so we had lots of room to get our gear on board. We dove with Adventure Scuba out of Blowing Rocks Marina. John was our captain and Bill and Mike were our DMs.
The boat left the dock shortly before 7:00. We had 16 divers.
The ocean was a little rolly with 1-2 foot seas. The sky was a little clouded up and the air was warm.
Our first dive was a twilight dive at Juno Ledges. This is a wonderful dive. Lots of high relieve at the reefs edge. There was a medium current, vis was about 60 feet, and the water was warm. Lots of fish. Saw a few lobster, mostly spanish.
We had 25 minutes at 80 feet and then an hour 10 at the surface before our second dive.
The second dive was definitely a night dive. We did this dive at Loggerhead Reef. Good name for this spot. We ALWAYS see turtles here, and this dive was no exception. We dropped into the water with our lights on. As we approached the bottom, we felt a distinct thermocline (the water temp dropped to 71! - burrrrrrr) If you came up 10 feet, the water warmed about 5 degrees. We dropped right on a very large lobster out for a walk in the sand. This guy was at least 4 maybe 5 pounds.
Others in the group saw a free swimming green moray munching on a fish. Lots of turtles were also seen here.
There were lots of bioluminescence in the water - and lots of shrimp. You don't see the shrimp during the day, but your light turns their eyes into little headlights at night.
We saw a lot of rather large lobster on this dive. Of course, they know its not season and they taunt you. They walk right out of their holes and wave their antenna at you. I can just hear them saying "Na na nana na!" :-)
Our depth was 70 feet. Vis was as far as your light would shine. We had another 25 minutes on this dive.
As we were heading back into the dock, the clouds thinned out and we could see the full moon. The whole boat (well, maybe not the WHOLE boat - but a few of us crazies!) got our howls in at the moon! We had a great time.
This trip was organized by the Down Under Dive Club. Thanks Tom. You did a wonderful job. Cost for the trip was $38 for members and $43 for non-members. This did not include tanks.
Next dive, June 19th at Pepper Park for DEMA's Dive-In Day. We are planning on entering the water at 9:00 AM.
Pepper Park, Ft. Pierce Beach Dive - June 19, 1999
Yet another wonderful dive!
This dive was organized by DEMA to establish and set a new Guiness World Record for the largest group dive. They organized dives all over the US and pictures and reports are being sent to DEMA to be compiled and presented to Guiness.
6 of us met at my house between 6:30 and 7:00am on Saturday. We loaded up and headed for Pepper Park. It was an hour drive and we go to the park around 8:15am. Here we met up with 5 other divers. We organized our buddy teams and headed into the water.
The entry was a snap. A little bit of surf, but not bad. I was with 2 of our youth group Crew members. We carried our fins and masks until we got passed the breakers. As soon as we were ready, we dropped to the bottom and SCUBA'ed out to the first reef. The first reef is about 70 yards from the beach. There was a bit of a surge that kept sweeping me sideways. My compass was spinning (seems to do this as you approach the first reef - iron ore maybe?) so I focused in on the sand ripples to keep my bearings straight.
We hit the first reef and vis was only about 8 to 10 feet. The first reef is rather boring. Flat rocks with some vegetation and small tropicals. We immediately crossed over the first reef and headed for the second. The second reef had some ledges with a little bit of relief. We headed south on the second reef since there was a very mild north current. It wasn't long before I decided to take my group out to the third reef (about 120 yards from the beach). The third reef line has a lot of ledges and relief with all kinds of nooks and crannys. This is where all the really neat stuff starts. Our group saw a couple of lobster (good size), a rather large snook hanging out under a ledge, a hawks bill turtle sleeping way up under a ledge, a barracuda, sea cucumbers, lots of fish, and more sea urchins than I care to remember. They were EVERYWHERE!!!!! At the third reef, we had 15-20 foot of vis.
Max depth was 20 feet with it getting shallower as we got farther out. The third reef was only in about 12 foot of water.
Halfway through our dive, I surfaced to get our bearings. Since the north current wasn't very strong, we turned around and headed north for the second half of our dive. I checked the shore occassionally and when we got to the place where we entered the water, we headed back in.
We had an hour dive and still had 1200 lbs of air left (except Cathy who doesn't breath - she had over 2000 lbs! :-)
After the dive, we met up with Wayne and George's group that dove the Urca de Lima wreck (1000 feet north of Pepper Park) for the group picture for DEMA. They had 4 in their group. There were also 3 other divers on the beach and we invited them to get into the picture. We had a total of 18 divers to add to the world's largest group dive attempt.
GET WET!!!!!
Splashdown Divers Boat Dive - July 24, 1999
One word - AWESOME!!!!!!
Flat seas, sunny skies, wonderful vis, lots of bugs, lots of fish, what else can I say?
A couple of us drove down to Boynton Beach Friday night to avoid the early rise. We stayed at the Relax Inn just around the corner from the Sea Mist Marina. Clean room with a kitchenette - $45. Nothing fancy, but very convenient - did I mention it was just around the corner from the boat? :-)
The rest of the group drove down Saturday morning. We met at the Splash Dancer boat of Splash Down Divers in the Sea Mist Marina at 8:30. We had 10 in our group and there was another group of 8 on the boat. This made the boat a little cramped. I'm used to having more room. The boat was equipped with a variety of drinks and snacks and had a fresh water shower for rinsing. Lynn was the captain and Linda was the crew. They didn't have dive guides - we carried our own dive flags.
We split our group into 2 groups of 5. This worked very well. 2 buddy groups and one flag holder.
The first dive site was Briney Breezes, max depth 60 foot with top to bottom vis. There was a mild south to north current, but you could easily swim against it. Typical awesome West Palm reefs with lots of relief. Bugs everywhere! Of course, they won't be there on Wednesday! :-) We had about 30 minutes of bottom time on this dive.
After a surface interval of 45 minutes, we dove Lynn's Reef. The current had picked up a bit and we didn't have to work as hard at this dive as we did the first dive. Again, loads of fish and bugs. Bobby found a tickle stick on the bottom and used it to heard 4 bugs out from under a rock. They lined up and stood at attention for all in our group to marvel over.
We had another 30 minutes bottom time on the second dive.
After surfacing, Marty (a new diver and new to our group) invited us to go out on his boat in the afternoon. Well, since the weather and conditions were sooooooo glorious, we just couldn't pass up the invitation.
Once we got back to the dock, Glenn (also new to our group) was waiting for us at the dock and he, too, wanted to go out in his boat. Since the 2 boats were docked at the same marina, we took BOTH boats out! Glenn's wife, Linda, and Marty's girlfriend, Lynn, joined us.
We got a bunch of tanks filled at the boat dock and headed for the marina. After loading the gear into the boats, we headed out for Boynton Ledges.
Bobby, John, Marty and I dropped in and down to 55 feet. Sand. Sand to the left, sand to the right, sand, sand, sand and a rippen north current! I motioned to go up for a re-drop, but Bobby pointed east (where the reef should be) and started to swim that way with the dive float so we all followed (actually, we were going north/east). More sand. However, it wasn't JUST sand. There were small patches of reef with their own little ecosystem and loads of juvenile fish, sponges, and corals. However, the current was ripping so hard that you couldn't stop and enjoy the patches - we just looked as we flew by. There were also lots of gregonian colonies growing in the sand.
I saw a couple of fish that I haven't yet identified. They were about 18 inches long, slender, white with a pale blue and pale red strip down their back. They individually hung around a hole in the sand and when we approached, would zip into the hole and disappear. In fact, the hole disappeared, too! Does anyone know what these fish are?
Marty ran low on air first, so I surfaced with him. As we ascended, I noticed Bobby and John kicking hard to the east. They were bound and determined to find the reef. And they did! Bobby told me later that as he approached the reef, he checked his air. OOPS! 400 lbs. He worked pretty hard to get there and sucked it down pretty quick. But he got there! Just in time to surface.... He and John were surfacing as Marty and I were finishing our safety stop.
Our second dive was at Glenn's Wreck. (I've looked for the formal name of this wreck but haven't found it - Glenn, do you know the name of this site?) This dive site was only in about 15 feet of water 1 1/2 miles north of the Boynton Inlet. We were very close to the shore so the current wasn't bad at all. We anchored both boats, suited up, and jumped in. Glenn dives this site a lot so he was our dive guide.
What a wonderful dive! This site should probably be called puffer alley. I've never seen so many ocean puffers in one place. The wreck is a 200 foot wooden boat with just the ribs left. There are large plates all over the place that look like bottom, but at the end, there are drops and you can see under. There was about a foot and a half relief underneath these plates and just FULL of fish. We saw nurse sharks, small moray eels, pork fish, snapper, grunts, yellow tails, groupers, all kinds of juveniles..... It was a wonderful spot. After 45 minutes, we surfaced and headed back in.
Bobby, Marty, and Lynn took a little longer to get started back in and when we met them at the marina, they told us that as they were leaving, Lynn and Splash Dancer were approaching the spot for this site to be the second dive of their afternoon trip.
We had dinner at a wonderful restaurant on the water called Old House. Glenn told us that the house was built in 1889 and they used wood from the wreck that we had just dove in the construction. Too cool!
We said good-bye to our new friends and headed back to Melbourne. We got home around 11:00 pm, dead tired, and feeling GREAT!!!!!! What a wonderful day! Thanks to everyone who went on this trip and helped to make it such a success!
Pineapple Pier Cleanup - Keep Brevard Beautiful - September 18, 1999
RAIN!!!!!!! And lots of it!
We had 3 folks show up for the pier cleanup at Pineapple Pier in Eau Gallie on Saturday. 2 could not dive (medical issues) and we weren't going to just put one person in the water (need a buddy). So we cleaned up the beach area around the pier. We picked up a lot of junk including a large mesh onion bag and a single sneaker.
OceanFest 99, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea - September 19, 1999
On Sunday, September 19th, we met at 5:30 AM at my house to go to Ocean Fest at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. We had 4 divers and after checking out the weather and ocean conditions on the web, we decided to go back to bed.
Not a good weekend for diving!
Rainbow River - November 20, 1999
Hello Fellow Divers!
Another wonderful dive trip!
We met at my house in Melbourne at 8:30am. We had a total 11 folks in the car pool (3 vehicles) and 2 other divers that met us at the dive site for a total of 13. We were on the road by 9:00am.
We arrived at K.P. Hole in Dunnellon at noon and had yummy chicken salad sandwiches and ham and cheese sandwiches along with chips, tangerines, fruit roll-ups, gummie bears, soda, and tea.
It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the air was about 80 degrees.
While waiting for the shuttle boat, a couple of the folks went swimming while Bobby (my hubby) rented a canoe. He was sick earlier this week and decided that submerging himself in spring water probably was not a good idea. :-)
While waiting for the shuttle boat, a bus arrived from South Carolina filled with 40 12 to 16 year old girls. They came to snorkle the river.
Our shuttle boat arrived at 1:30. We loaded and headed a mile up the river. The boat driver gave us some very good pointers on navigating the river. We went upstream from the snorkle gang.
The water was actually warmer than usually - registering 77 degrees on the dive computers.
We had 1 canoer, 2 snorklers and 3 groups of divers (10 divers total). The water was crystal clear until we came upon the mass of snorklers. They stirred up the sediment in the shallow areas which disturbed our vis. Once past the snorklers, the vis cleared up again.
One of our divers found a shark's tooth and an alligator claw. Bobby spotted a 4 foot alligator sunny himself on the shore. The park rangers assured us that there was a 'gator living in the river but that he didn't bother the divers.
The large springs were awesome. We had one diver that didn't want to come out of one of the caverns. The water inside the springs is so crystal clear that you could forget that you are underwater.
We saw snapping turtles, soft shell turtles, slider turtles, huge bass, small bass, huge blue gill, sunnys, and gar fish.
There was a lot of river grass and the dive is somewhat like a roller coaster with dramatic changes in the depth. One minute you're in 4 foot of water, the next you're dropping to 15 foot to check out a spring, and then back to up to 8 foot. The current carried us along at about 1 knot. What a relaxing dive and a GREAT way to give your dive gear a good fresh water rinse!
The dive took us about 1.5 hours.
After the dive, we packed up and left K.P. Hole park at 5:00pm. We stopped in Dunnellon at Pizza Hut for dinner. We left Dunnellon at 6:30pm and arrived home at 9:20pm.
Another very successful dive!
